L.S. Easton
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Chapter 35 - Classwork
🕑 Added 2024-12-31 09:06:26 +0000 UTCElder Johnson vanished after finishing his explanation, and Kevin wandered back over to the desk with his mind a whirl. The Sinking Sands was just what he’d discussed with Foster when they’d thought up his combat style.
Using shifting parries and dragging motions, the style combined defensiveness and maneuverability. Which was what he needed to deploy formations and lead his opponents into them.
The upcoming Combat Formations class should cover the deployment section, though he didn’t know quite how yet. In the stories he’d read, formation users somehow spewed flags out at high speeds while dropping them in the perfect positions.
Hopefully, Elder Fischer could impart something similar to him.
After the deployment stage, the real work would begin. Unless they were oblivious, whoever he was fighting would have watched him throw flags out. They might not recognize what the formation did, but they would have to be stupid to walk into one.
That was where the emotional component of the style was so perfect. When someone ignored obvious openings, as the elder had, it felt like you were being toyed with. It was as if your opponent was so far above you that they had no need to strike your weak points.
Combined with feeling like you were almost landing each strike, the style drove the opponent into a blind chasing frenzy. Finally, the circular dragging motions disoriented them until they had no idea where they were headed.
It was like a weaponized version of social engineering, a perfect fit for him. Elder Johnson certainly knew his stuff.
“All sorted?” Francis asked on his return.
“Yeah, it’s the Sinking Sands style.”
“Got it,” the senior disciple responded, nodding. “I’ll be posting a priority job request for a suitably advanced practitioner of the style. They will handle your practical training in the three-hour slot on Friday.”
“Don’t copy anything the elder showed you until then,” Francis admonished with a hard stare. “You’ll just form bad habits that your tutor will have to fix. Once they’re happy with your basic competence, the sect will supply a copy of the style manual for private practice.”
“Got it,” Kevin nodded, throwing away his half-baked plan to do just that. “What should I do for the rest of the class?”
“Whatever you want,” Francis shrugged. “The goal was to pick your style, which is done on your part. We still need to work through the other disciples, but you can stay or leave as you wish.”
“Though,” the man winked, jerking his head to the field. “I would go practice my basics some more. It might not be one-on-one, but any correction from the elder is valuable, and you can never be too solid on the basics.”
Kevin thanked the man before vacating the spot for the next disciple. Following Francis’ advice, he trained for the rest of the lesson.
Johnson gave him a few more corrections during that time, each making his movements smoother and more effective.
By the end, Kevin was almost ready to collapse from exhaustion but forced himself to stumble toward the nearest building. Most had cafeterias in them, and he didn’t have time to be picky.
He had only an hour to recover before his last class of the day, Introduction to Qi Shielding, at two p.m.
TEC:109 was held in a small lecture theater within the massive Techniques building. Since the building seemed to be a catch-all for everything outside of a specific department, its size wasn’t much of a surprise.
Right on time, a young woman ushered the sixteen assembled disciples inside.
Moving to the front of the room, she stood with arms crossed behind her back until everyone had taken a seat. “Welcome to TEC-109. I am senior disciple Li Yen of the inner sect; you may refer to me as Miss Li.”
Li, presumably her surname, didn’t look a day over twenty and was a touch under five feet tall. Her black hair and delicate features held a strong Asian influence, which would be Xi’anian here. Despite her small size, her body blazed with the full force of her Core Formation realm.
“We will discuss the theory behind Qi-shielding and its uses in combat during this Monday time slot. In our Thursday slot, we will perform group training and sparring practice.”
Li held an arm up and across her body, the outer edge glowing with gray light. “This is the basic blocking technique we will focus on in this class. It reinforces a physical block rather than attempting to stop a strike with nothing but Qi.”
“Please take careful notes; I will not repeat myself.” After giving everyone a minute to scramble for supplies, she began the full lecture.
While not as intense as his tutoring with Elder Fischer, it was still a full-on lesson. Along with her descriptions of how to direct Qi and hold it in various body parts, Li projected diagrams through some kind of illusion technique.
“If you require additional information, then Qi Shielding: An Introduction, by Elder Li Ming, is a well-regarded source,” Li said as she closed the lecture. “You can purchase a copy from the library for fifteen merit.”
“Study as much theory as you want; I encourage it, but do not attempt the technique without supervision. That is all.”
Kevin followed the rest of the class, standing and bowing as she left. While exhausting, the lecture was fascinating. It even calmed some of his worries about attempting the technique with his sealed land.
Still, he was glad it was over. The day had been exhausting, and he hadn’t even done any cultivation. All he wanted to do was relax, but he pushed himself to fit in a single session at the Fire courtyard.
On the way, he swung by the library and picked up a copy of the recommended book. While it sounded like the teacher was advertising her own family’s book, he could use all the help he could get.
The purchase used up most of the merit he’d gained so far, but it was a tiny expense compared to what he needed to earn. More of a gesture than anything. Since it only affected his current merit and not his total, Kevin wasn't too worried about it.
With a few hours before bed, he split his time between relaxing and reading the first chapter of Qi Shielding: An Introduction. Li had covered much of it in the lecture, but the book also had little tidbits of information to add.
The added study hammered home what he’d already learned and showed the worth of purchasing it.
He still needed to get a start on his formations, but that could wait until he had a clear mind. There was so much to practice, and he hadn’t even had the first lesson for every class yet.
FORM-102: Introductory Maintenance started at the much more reasonable time of nine AM the next morning. This allowed Kevin to fit in a morning Fire Qi session and review his FORM-101 notes before it started.
The teacher, Lucas Thresher, must have been one of the inner sect cultivators who had been ‘too busy’ to teach FORM-101. Given everything he’d seen from Elder Fischer, Kevin wasn’t even sure if that part had been true.
Regardless, the senior disciple displayed a firm understanding of his subject. In the first lesson, he guided them through the basics of identifying a formation. This, Thresher insisted, was something they had to master before they could move on to the later steps.
“The most dangerous thing you can do,” he said with a firm stare at the small class. “Is to mess with a formation that you don’t understand. Don’t even attempt to move onto the next step unless you’re at least ninety-nine percent sure the formation is safe.”
“There are far too many potential patterns to memorize, and most we do not have access to. What we will focus on is identifying key themes that provide clues to a formation’s purpose.”
“Each clue you find will help to build a pattern. Some will suggest potential uses, while others discard impossible options. With enough work, you will gather sufficient evidence to determine what the formation does.”
Thresher filled his two-hour slot with an intriguing theory but left them nothing to work on until the practical lesson later in the week. This was quite a relief, as Kevin already had plenty on his plate.
On his way out, he chatted briefly with the other class members. He’d been surprised to find six people when he’d shown up instead of just the three from FORM-101. It turned out that the other three were from the last cycle of FORM-101, where the teacher hadn’t been as harsh as Fischer.
It sounded like the spring intake was almost three times the size of this one. Yet these three and a couple more who’d taken it six months ago were the only ones who had stayed with formations.
No wonder the elder was trying something new this time.
Shaking his head, Kevin waved goodbye to the group and headed back to his room. With two hours for the first class of FORM-115, he wanted to go over both his sets of formation notes again.
Impressing Elder Fischer would be nice and could potentially lead to some benefits, but more than anything, he needed to avoid disappointing her. Her threat to give Henry half his time was still well-present in his mind.
The first class of FORM-115 brought Kevin to the Formations building and to the same classroom as before. Having remembered Elder Fischer’s lateness from her first class, he’d timed it to show up just before one PM.
The door was open when he arrived this time and was bracketed by a flag on either side. Somehow, the base of the wooden rods had merged into the floor without splintering it, keeping them upright and letting the cloth sections flap open.
With raised eyebrows, Kevin looked over the strange sight. If this were an example of the techniques they’d learn in this class, then his expectations were rising already.
Four other disciples were waiting outside. Karlene Brown from his FORM-102 class was there, along with three he didn’t know. Presumably, they’d studied formations in previous cycles, perhaps even a year or more ago.
“Get in here, you lot,” Fischer shouted, striding into view of the doorway. “We don’t have all day.”
Once they were all seated, she continued. “Welcome to FORM-115. Lesson one: you’re all dead.”
As she spoke, the room filled with a deep purple light, casting dark shadows over her face as it shifted into an evil grin. Shouts filled the room, and chairs thumped to the ground. A couple of people even ran for the door, smashing into an invisible barrier.
Kevin froze, trying to keep calm and analyze the situation. Had he misjudged the elder that much? No… this didn’t make sense; it had to be some kind of test.
A moment later, it was over. The light faded, and Fischer’s mocking laughter filled the room. “Got you,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “But funny as that was, it’s also deadly serious.”
All traces of amusement left her face as she glanced around at the confused crowd. “I must say, I’m quite disappointed. You all walked into my slaughter formation with barely a glance at the flags. I even placed them outside instead of hiding them."
"If I had been a real enemy, you would all be very dead.”
“But ma’am,” one of the older disciples said, raising his arm. “You called us in here.”
“Indeed. The formation mistress called you into her formation. How very kind of you to comply. If only your future opponents would follow suit,” Fischer snarked. “Now sit back down so we can review what you should have done.”
Kevin settled in his chair, his heartbeat slowing. That had been shocking and perhaps a little harsh, but it hammered the point home. He hadn’t even considered the flags a threat when he arrived.
He should have. This was a combat formations class; the whole point was to make formations dangerous. That was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
“In FORM-102, you should have learned to never modify a formation you do not understand,” Fischer began, looking them each in the eye as she paced back and forth. “Today, we take that a step further.”
“You are never to walk into or through a formation you do not understand. In the heat of battle, it is often impossible to reach the level of surety you were looking for in FORM-102. Instead, we aim for ninety percent certainty.”
“A little more if you have time, a little less if you’re in a real rush. Am I clear? Not one formation you don’t understand.”
Karlene raised a hand in Kevin’s peripheral vision, and Fischer pointed to her. “Yes, Miss Brown?”
“What about the doors, Ma’am? They’re formations, right?”
“Yes, the doors,” the elder chuckled again, a low, dangerous sound. “They’re safe, right? You’ve all been using them. They just take you to somewhere in the building. Anywhere in the building.”
Lifting a hand, Fischer began ticking off examples. “Like a sealed, airless room. Or the furnace, or a room filled with slaughter formations.”
“Our lovely doors might seem safe, but I assure you that for an intruder, they are anything but.”
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